A games controller is everything. It's the interface between the player and the game, and - arguably - the most iconic hardware element of any console. It's telling that Nintendo has kept that classic d-pad design, and the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 joypads are direct evolutionary descendants of the original Xbox and PlayStation controllers.

And yet... when a controller goes wrong, it can go very wrong. and not even the big boys and girls of the games industry always get it right. Here are 10 big name controllers which really should've been better.

Prepare your sacred cows for a battering! 

I still remember the first time I spilled my eyes on a PlayStation, months before its release, hidden from syrupy fingers within a perspex box at a trade show. It looked - and still looks - gorgeous, losing none of its design classic status in this: its new shrunk-down form.

As is the trend for these miniature "classic" machines, the PlayStation Classic offers an HDMI cable, USB controllers, and... no AC adaptor. The latter doesn't bother me much - I've plenty of spare USB power plugs lolling around - but it needs mentioning if only to point and cackle at everyone who has thrown their toys out of the pram over something so insignificant. 

If that's the sort of issue which fuels your boiler then congratulations: you've clearly got nothing else to worry about in your life. 

Of course, this reproduction minikin offers a wad of old games; 20, in fact. Indeed, in some respects, the PlayStation Classic has more of a reason to exist than the Super NES, NES and Commodore 64 minis, given that PlayStation games are something more of a faff for the average pleb to get working with an emulator. 

Because, let's be blunt here, these mini consoles are not for the hardcore retro enthusiast (not that this stops the hardcore complaining). We know you can shove ALL THE GAMES into a Raspberry Pi. We know you like playing on the original hardware. These machines are for those gamers who remember enjoying a PlayStation back in the day, and will appreciate a quick nostalgia fix, before shoving the thing under the telly come December 27th, never to touch it again. 

We're into the final stretch now. Next Sunday, Digitiser the Show comes to the end of its first run, and I think it's fair to say that over the course of the past five episodes we've come a long way. We've definitely established what the show is, won many of you over who weren't convinced by the first episode, and talked about old games - a lot. 

I'm immensely proud of this series. The amount of work it has taken is above and beyond what I could've predicted, but we delivered exactly what we promised. I'll save the real thankyous for next week, but a quick shout-out to Paul, Jenny, Octav1us and Larry, who are the glue which hold it all together on-screen.

You can't underestimate what a daunting prospect this must've been for them - to walk into a studio of people they barely knew, with immense pressure on them to be informative, funny, and professional. Jenny and Octav1us had never done anything remotely like this before, but you simply wouldn't know.

You're extremely exposed in a situation like that - especially in this day and age - where it's your face on screen. Putting yourself out there takes a huge amount of bravery. The fact that they overcame all that and performed not just adequately, but brilliantly, is genuinely humbling. I don't take it for granted.

Anyway... let's take a look behind-the-scenes of Episode 5.... BEWARE: SPOILERS!

Oh, and incidentally, if you're wondering where Episode 1 has gone to, I've taken it down temporarily so that we can fix the sound and frame-rate issues. It does mean we'll lose all those lovely views, but - let's face it - half of them were from wankers anyway. 

Sunday night. 9pm. The penultimate episode of Digitiser Series 1. This one is something of a guest-fest, with Ashens, Imran Yusuf, John Robertson, Dan Maher, Quang from Asobi-Tech and DJ Slope.

As others have correctly pointed out, the show has very much found its groove now. If you, or anyone you know, drifted away after the first ep or two... it's time to give it another chance. The most gratifying thing after last week's episode was seeing people talking about games off the back of it. That's when I knew we'd gotten the balance right. 

In the words of Sonic The Hedgehog, this weeks ep is "A good 'un!"

Interestingly, Ep 5 was the quickest one yet to edit - and I've realised that it's because I'm doing less experimenting with the format. And, also, I'm getting a bit of help with the sound and colour grading. Which is just as well, as this week my battered adrenal glands finally gave out, after a month or two of threats, and I succumbed to The Cold. 

So, one last ep next week - the big series finale. Which, in true end-of-the-series fashion, brings back everything you've loved so far...

If you'd like to appear here, or you've something you'd like me to give some attention to in our occasional Plug Zone, or you've got a picture of a bin you wish to share, please send your filthy emails to this place here: digitiser2000@gmail.com
​

GUEST REVIEW BY SUPER BAD ADVICE

Museums are pretty great – where else can you see dinosaur skellies, poorly taxidermised cross-eyed apes and probably cursed mummies in the same place? What’s not great, though, is going to a museum with someone who insists on taking in every word of every single information panel.
 
You know the sort: while you want to move on to the T. Rex and that bit where you can pull levers and make a dented ping-pong ball go down a pipe to represent nuclear fission, they’ll be reading a novel-length epic about a lump of bauxite in a dusty corridor that hasn’t been visited in decades.
 
Worse still, they’ll even linger to read plaques in the human reproduction exhibit, right in front of the disturbingly hirsute nudey models who look like they’re from that ‘funny yoga’ book you found under your mum and dad’s bed in 1982. Perverts.
 
Now, imagine that you’re with 3 or 4 people like that, and you ALL have to read the information boards before you’re allowed to move on whether you like it or not. Does that sound like fun? Does it, Dennis? Of course it doesn’t. So you’ll be as delighted as I was to discover that this craptacular gaming mechanic has inexplicably been made an integral part of Fallout 76’s multiplayer experience.

​Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Of all the original PlayStation icons, Spyro the Dragon was one that I never expected to endure. Somehow, the character - albeit eventually coming to be buried beneath a coagulation of fellow dish-eyed cartoon characters - saw his series evolve into the long-running Skylanders franchise, despite having all the distinctness and personality of a clog that somebody had scrawled the word "DUDE" on in biro.

Despite that, when my kids were little, Spryo was something of a fixture in our household.

​My youngest daughter was never big into games, but the Spyro series (and, later, Kameo: Elements of Power) were her games. Consequently, the splashback nostalgia she still radiates has given me a sort of latent sentimentality towards the Spyro series.

She's 22 now, but even asked for a second-hand PS1 and a copy of Spyro for Christmas last year. Naturally, I was happy to oblige, given that she usually just wants crystals, and dreamcatchers, and all that shit. Though I have noticed that they now do a Spryro incense burner, which is a surprising confluence of things she's into.

Actually, for £29.99 they can fuck off. She can have socks.

It's getting better and better isn't it? For me, last night's ep of Digitiser is the best one yet. In terms of balance between all-out stupid stuff, chemistry between the hosts, and talking about games, it absolutely nails it. 

We know we've already won back a few people who buggered off after ep 1, but the general consensus seems to be that, well, people just want more. In all honesty, I don't know what happens after the series ends.

At the moment all I can think about is the next couple of episodes, and then taking a break, but just know that we would love to build on what we've achieved, and we're open to suggestions as to how we fund it. I'm a bit off the notion of doing another Kickstarter at the minute... 

For now, the best thing you can do is tell people about this show. We've found a core, passionate, audience - but there have to be more people out there who'd love this. We're well aware that we've made something very special here. 

Anyhow. Time to reveal some of these: secrets.

If you've yet to see the episode, be aware that this article contains spoilers...

Stuff a load of this up your "musty breach", Gordon: Commodore didn't just make the Commodore 64 and Amiga. The company's origins date back to 1954, when New York-based Polish taxi driver Jack Tramiel - a survivor of Auschwitz no less - founded the Commodore Polski Sklep Companski (Portable Typewriter Company).

AS cheap Japanese typewriters started flooding the North American market, Tramiel moved his business into manufacuring adding machines. More Japanese competition in the late-1960s convinced Tramiel to visit Japan with a view to understanding his competitors - and he returned with the notion to move into electronics, wearing a schoolgirl uniform and a pair of cat ears.

Specifically, Commodore's focus would henceforth be this: calculators.

​And one thing led to another.

​Here, then, is the rest of the Commodore family - the ones nobody ever talks about. You know: like that uncle who used to come for Christmas, but stopped being invited after he attempted to impregnate the turkey while mother was still removing the giblets. His name? Uncle Bruno Bongo! 

The ZX Spectrum was my machine.

I know I'm not alone in clutching it to my hairy bosom, but if I was forced to have my memory wiped of all but one games system, the Spectrum is the one I'd choose to keep. It was the point at which I properly understood the potential of games - the breadth of its catalogue displaying more imagination and creativity than that of any rival home computer.

I played a lot of diverse games back then - let's face it, we all did thanks to the ubiquity of illegal C90 cassettes being passed around among mates - but one of the system's most potent selling points were its arcade conversions.

A machine as objectively limited should not have been able to offer any half-decent conversions of games designed for hardware costing thousands of pounds... and yet, somehow, the Spectrum provided a ton of them. And here are 10 of my favourites.

Watch this Sunday's ep of Digitiser, where I make an impassioned defence of the Speccy.

It's unlikely that even Sega would suggest its Saturn was anything less than an embarrassing failure, the console equivalent of having your trousers fall down just as you reach the check-out in Lidl... Oh no! And you forgot to put on any underwear to boot!

We've all been there.

Over the years, the reasons given for gaming's biggest folly have included a botched launch, underpowered hardware, the lack of an original Sonic The Hedgehog game, bee reasons, and - most significantly - aggressive competition from the PlayStation.

Whereas the Mega Drive/Genesis had been driven to success by the passionate and confident leadership of Sega of America, the Saturn was kneecapped by internal divisions within Sega.

And yet... does the Saturn really deserve its feeble reputation? Surely it can't have been all smelly? Get a load of this, sweaty: it wasn't', and here are 12 very good reasons why you should give it another chance. 

I get to every Sunday and think "Well, that episode was a nightmare to edit - at least the next one won't be". And then it is.

Ep 3 was indeed a nightmare of an edit, and the final final version - still warts and all - wasn't uploaded until a few hours before the ep went live (allowing just enough time for YouTube to process it). Before that happened, some of you over on Twitter may have noticed that Paul Gannon and I found ourselves in the midst of a wee brouhaha.

Earlier in the week, Paul had come up with a plan to drum up a bit of extra interest in the episode by pretending we'd had some sort of big falling out. He was going to announce his resignation following the episode, with a special video, I was going to respond - then we'd carry on the charade throughout this week, before kissing and making up, and him rejoining the series just in time for next week's episode. I thought it was genius.

We're both big fans of Gregg Turkington and Tim Heidecker's On Cinema At The Cinema, and they offer a similar sort of meta narrative, which spills out of the show and into the real world. And it's great - it kind of extends the show beyond the boundaries of a just-once-a-week thing.

Unfortunately... it appears we may have been too subtle, and as fun as it was for us to do... well, we won't be doing it again.

I mean, I thought my over-the-top Trump-style tweets were a pretty clear indication that this was all a big joke. And that saying Paul Gannon "nearly dies" in the episode was obviously OTT clickbait hyperbole. Not to mention the fact that the series was filmed six months ago, and if Paul had nearly died, or harboured some issue with what we'd done, he'd have quit long before now. Besides, if we'd really had a falling out I wouldn't have been part of CheapShow Live etc. etc.

Certainly - as grown men - we wouldn't have aired our dirty laundry on social media. I mean... give us some credit.

GUEST POST by LARRY BUNDY JR

Let’s set the scene… You discover that your favourite video game character is receiving their own statue.  It doesn’t matter that it costs a ridiculous amount of money and is too large to display anywhere in your house. None of that will stop you from forking out for an effigy of your beloved icon.

But the dream of sharing your home with a miniature of your gaming hero sometimes turns into a nightmare… Some of these creations are so hideous, they resemble the love child of Sloth from the Goonies and that bloke who drove into the chemical waste in RoboCop.

So, with a tear in your eye, off they go back into the box for all eternity as you’re too embarrassed to display it!

In honour of these computer chagrins, here are some of the worst examples of Special Edition Statues:

I have no hesitation in declaring Half-Life 2 my favourite game of all time. For me, it's the perfect game - blending enveloping storytelling with gameplay that remains fresh and varied throughout. Notably, it's the only game I've ever been arsed to play all the way through more than once; no less than four times in fact (plus the mini follow-ups, Episode One and Two).

It's hard to think of a game in the last 14 years which has manage to accomplish the same heady amalgam of fun, immersion, aesthetics, and variety. There's barely a limp moment anywhere in Half-Life 2 - but it's also startling how few games have been influenced by it. No wonder Valve has struggled to give birth to a bona-fide follow-up. 

For now though - and possibly forever - Half-Life 2 remains the best video game I've ever launched into my crevice. Here are some of the reasons why.